Written by a practitioner of mathematics, philosophy, taiji, gluten-free cooking, chant, meditation, gardening, and renovation, with no particular end in mind. Were there an end, it would come too soon, and the Path would cease to Wander.

04 June 2007

Rob Knopp has an excellent post on his reaction to the so-called "Creation Museum."

Go below the fold for a taste of it:"First, there's the fact that these jokers loudly proclaim themselves as Christians, and not only that, but as somehow the "true" Christians. It seems that they've defined the purest Christians as the most ignorant ones, the ones who believe that thinking critically is a sin, the ones who believe that the Bible must be interpreted literally even where it makes no sense because, even though they claim that we are somehow "different" from the animals because we can cogitate, we're not really supposed to cogitate."

The second comment (by someone calling himself Zedd) is also right on the money: "Terry Goodkind said in his novel Wizard's First Rule "People will believe any lie as long as they want it to be true or are afraid that it might be." People who buy into crap like the Creation Museum have a very fragile faith, like a house of cards, founded on biblical inerrancy. If you can convince them of one single error in the bible then their whole faith comes crashing down. So, to avoid that they shout louder and listen not at all."

I've lost count of the number of deconversion stories I've read in various places that went something like, "They told me (X) had to be true, and if (X) wasn't true, then (religionname) wasn't true, either. Well, (X) isn't true, and (religionname) is garbage!" And now I can't resist adding a song I remember from Sunday school: "Oh the Foolish Man built his house upon the sand,oh the foolish man built his house upon the sand,oh the the foolish man built his house upon the sandand the rains came a'tumblin' down.

Oh the rains came down and the floods came up,Yes the rains came down and the floods came up,Oh the rains came down and the floods came up,and the house on the sand went smoooosh."

Anyone intelligent enough to see through the morass of lies presented as science is going to reject the religion outright rather than try to find a compromise position. Tell people lies long enough and, when they finally notice, they burn every bridge. "What else have they been lying about? Can I believe any of the stuff they've told me?"

In most systems of "magick," practitioners are discouraged from lying because this weakens the power of their words. I think this idea has a lot of validity in real life. Not for supposed magic spells, but just for dealing with people in general. It's headology. Tell too many lies, and no one will believe anything you say. Tell the plain truth and your words will carry much more weight. And, please, don't lie about stuff that can actually be tested unless you want to convince people that you're a complete idiot.